Jaffa mosque daubed with 'Mohammed is a pig,' 'Death to Arabs'

Worshippers discovered hate slogans on walls and doors when they arrived for morning prayers.

Extremists spray-painted "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to Arabs" early Sunday on the walls and doors of the Sea Mosque in Jaffa, sparking the fury of the Islamic Movement in the mixed Arab-Jewish city.

The hate slogans also included "Kahane was right," a reference to the slain Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the outlawed anti-Arab Kach movement, and "No peace without the House of Peace," alluding to the Hebron structure from which dozens of far-right activists were evicted earlier this month.

Two Stars of David were painted on the entrance to the mosque.

Worshippers discovered the graffiti when they arrived for early morning prayers on Sunday. Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajweh, head of the Islamic Movement in Jaffa, condemned the acts. He blamed settlers for the graffiti, saying that similar offenses had been committed in the West Bank.

"This is an outgrowth of lessened sentences for those Jews who have been proven to have attacked our holy sites, he said, noting the hurling of a pig's head in 2005 at the Hassan Beck mosque on the border with neighboring Tel Aviv, opposite the site of the Dolphinarium terror bombing that killed 21 people four years before.

The man who threw the head, an act which coincided with the disengagement from Gaza, was later sentenced to nine months in jail.

While Israel strongly protests desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Europe, there is incitement within Israel against everything Muslim, Sheikh Abu Ajweh said.